MSC Fantasia Review

-- / 5.0
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464 reviews

Great Cruise Ruined by Disastrous Disembarkation

Review for the Western Mediterranean Cruise on MSC Fantasia
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Justjayce
2-5 Cruises • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Dec 2010

Our Cruise Started on the 22nd of Dec. in Barcelona and ended on the 29th in Genoa. In between we visited Casablanca, Malaga, Alicante and Rome.

THE END

I need to start this review with the end of the cruise. At the end of the cruise all guests needed to stand in line at the shore excursion desk to get their passports back. We were forced to hand over our passports at the beginning of the cruise. I got in line at 8:30 AM and was assured the process would begin by 8:45. I was about 20th in line. Long story short, the process did not begin until 9:15 and it was pandemonium. The documents were not brought up in any order (or securely - cardboard boxes!) and the people at the desk needed to rifle through all passports to find ours. One man was complaining loudly that they lost his wife's passport and instead of trying to get this guy some help the staff threatened to have him removed by security - and one woman fainted. There were people rushing the desk because they were afraid of missing their flights. I did not get my passport until 10:05 and I was 20th in line and behind me were 100s of people. Great job MSC! I am sure if they read this they will push the blame to Customs. But they should find a way to scan passport information and allow passengers to keep their passports. The process is crap and it really ruined the cruise experience for everyone I spoke to.

Cabin Review

Cabin 6

THE BALCONY STATEROOM

Pretty standard (room 8090 on deck 8 which is starboard near the front) the cabin was decked out in green carpeting and a green headboard that ran almost to the top of the room. Upon entering the room you immediately find the closet which had plenty of space for all of our belongings and a safe that will not accommodate large laptops, but our netbook was fine. You also find the bathroom/shower which was small but adequate. Just like others have mentioned there are no small bottles of toiletries. Rather soap and shampoo come from dispensers like in a cheapo hotel. There is a placard in the bathroom which explains this is an "ECO Friendly" ship and they are eliminating plastic waste by removing the toiletries. In my mind this "ECO Friendly" claim is a bald faced lie as they have absolutely no problem bringing on 10's of thousands of plastic bottles of water to sell to their guests. It's really about the money.

The bed was on the left next to the bathroom and was flanked with two night stands each with drawers. Next to the bed was the couch and across from that was a table with an ottoman/stool. Ship was equipped with Europe and US power plugs. The desk continued to the end of the cabin and below the desk at that point was the minibar and above was the TV. There are only three English channels on that TV and ALL ARE NEWS CHANNELS, WHICH SUCKS. If you go on this ship load your computer with movies and shows and watch that in your room. DO use the interactive portion of the TV to book your excursions. So much easier than filling out paperwork at submitting it at the excursions desk. The balcony was small and had room for two wicker chairs and a wicker table. Deck 8 is the lowest deck of balconies. My forward viewing was obscured by the ships upper deck supports. My front and rear views were fine. The outside walkway on deck 7 was right below me. Deck 7 also has the lifeboats hung on them, so I got to see a lot of lifeboat #1 during my cruise. When we were at sea the view was beautiful, but in port it mostly stunk since the ports are mainly industrial.

I would avoid booking a cabin with a 169 to 200 as the last three digits of the stateroom. These are in the aft section of the ship where the exhaust stacks are. The stacks are not very well insulated and when the ship in under power the sound in the hallways is LOUD and there is vibration. This was true on all decks but it seemed much worse on the lower decks.

The ship does allow smoking inside, which sucks, but I found it tolerable for the most part. It would be better if they walled off the smoking areas with glass (HINT HINT MSC!) There is no smoking allowed on balconies.

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